They work tirelessly all day under the harsh rays of a blazing sun, the stench of death and destruction around them. They are a team of Jewish heroes who are working around the clock with one mission: the recovery of human bodies.

The SA Friends of the Beit Halochem Zahal Disabled Veterans Organisation was established in Johannesburg in 1982, its primary goal being to help and support Zahal disabled veterans by raising funds to help them return and resume their normal lives as soon as possible.

There’s a popular weekly satirical show in Israel called Eretz Nehederet. In a recent episode, an actor playing Benny Gantz, the former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and newcomer to Israeli politics, is asked how he’s feeling.

Devotion to the cause of the State of Israel flourishes in the most unlikely places, even in societies where the Jewish presence is small to non-existent. Such is the case in Mozambique, where the work of Beth-El Associacao Crista Amigos De Israel - Mozambican Christian Friends of Israel - testifies to how much can be achieved by those inspired by their Christian faith to promote the Israeli cause, despite adverse conditions.

JNF’s unique “Blue Boy Box” now lives at King David Linksfield Pre-Primary so that children of each generation learn the importance of tzedakah (charity or welfare). It is the responsibility of Jews all over the world to build Israel, develop it and nurture it as the home of the Jewish nation

“Knowledge is Light” was our school motto when I was a child in Durban. The importance of education was made clear to us from as far back as I can remember. It wasn’t taken for granted. A good education was a privilege.

(JTA) Norwegian rapper not charged with hate speech
A Norwegian rapper who cursed Jews while performing at an event in Oslo promoting multiculturalism will not be charged with hate speech, because his words may have been criticism of Israel, prosecutors said.

Did Israeli soldiers violate international law by deliberately targeting unarmed children, journalists, health workers, and people with disabilities during the past year of violence along the Israel-Gaza border?

(JTA) After the New England Patriots beat the favoured Kansas City Chiefs to reach their third straight Super Bowl – their amazing ninth in less than 20 years – CBS sports analyst Boomer Esiason made an intriguing statement, namely that Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

We are winging our way towards Human Rights Day (21 March), the first public holiday of the year, which coincides with Purim. I can’t help but wonder about our concept of human rights and what it means, not least of all, to our government.

President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed in parliament last week that South Africa intended to downgrade its diplomatic presence in Israel. The foreign affairs bureaucracy was working “feverishly” on the matter. “The decision to downgrade the embassy in Israel is informed precisely by the violation of the rights of Palestinians and we are therefore putting pressure on Israel. But at the same time, we are saying we are willing to play a role and ensure there is peace,” said Ramaphosa.

Undeterred, and in spite of the hate-filled disparagement that spewed forth when Shashi Naidoo uttered positive comments about Israel and Jews last year, Haafizah Bhamjee penned a reasoned and sensible article on Israel and the Palestinians in the SA Jewish Report of 22 February.

With Prince William’s historic visit to Israel this week, all eyes have been trained on the Jewish capital. It may have taken 70 years, but the first official visit by a member of the British Royal family began in Israel on Monday, when William, the Duke of Cambridge, arrived in Tel Aviv.

Some 5 600 emissaries (shluchim) from Chabad-Lubavitch from all over the world gathered at the Pier 8 warehouse in Brooklyn, New York this week for the opening of their four-day annual international conference and banquet, 75 years after the arrival of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, from Europe.

One of the questions that haunts the story of Purim and moves silently through the lines of the Megillah is clear and chillingly simple: How could Jews have chosen to remain in Persian Shushan? It was so clearly an environment in which anti-Semitism was so prevalent that a genocide could be planned and almost implemented without comment by broader society.

“The greatness of our nation is that our people are great. We are a nation of heroes, of people with good and decent moral fibre who will not tolerate our country being plundered!” So said Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein in Pretoria this morning.“This is a struggle for accountability and justice,” Goldstein told the crowd (which included prominent Jewish CEOs like Adrian Gore, Stephen Koseff and Michael Katz). “This struggle is about sovereignty. The power of the people always triumphs in the end.”

The Jewish Report Editorial

The catch-22 situation that is Gaza

As I was heading home on Tuesday, I heard on ChaiFM that 460 rockets had been fired from Gaza into Israel since late Sunday. That is an outrageous number. If every one of them hit inhabited areas, thousands of Israelis would have been killed.

by
PETA KROST MAUNDER | Nov 15, 2018

That didn’t happen, thanks to all the measures Israel takes to protect its civilians. The Iron Dome, for one, was hard at work trying to ensure that any rocket aimed at a populated area was stopped long before it reached its destination. This protection mechanism is used at a massive financial cost to the Israeli economy.

Nevertheless, the two-day attack claimed two lives and injured 85 people. It also caused anger, fear, frustration, and devastation in some people’s lives.

That was not the intention. Those rockets were aiming to kill and maim as many Israelis – men, women, children, whoever – as possible.

So, why am I not hearing world outrage? Am I naïve to expect under the circumstances that the world would be angry that this is happening? Perhaps. I guess I should know better. There was hardly a peep about it in the mainstream South African news. That is the way of the world - especially South Africa.

Truth is, even in Israel, some have been quite blasé about the shelling, referring to it having happened “down south”.

However, having been to the Gaza border recently, I have such a clear picture of the lovely, apparently peaceful, towns and kibbutzim on the border. I don’t have to imagine too hard to have an inkling of what their life was like this week. No work. No school. No going to get food for the children. Staying as close to the shelter or their safe room as possible so that they can get there in seconds. Being trapped. And while the number of rockets was unprecedented, rockets being fired across the border into this region was not new.

Many Israelis who live near to Gaza spend a great deal of time in their safe rooms or praying that the rockets don’t land anywhere near them.

Most of those people “down south” are angry with the Israeli government. They believe it has been soft on Hamas (which is behind the rockets), by pulling back with a ceasefire agreement.

It is not because they don’t want the shelling to stop, to the contrary. It is about the fact that the ceasefire is only as good as the people who uphold it. There have been many ceasefire agreements, and clearly they aren’t upheld for very long. The shelling comes back again and again, sometimes more rockets, and sometimes less.

These people, as quoted in a recent article we ran, can’t get post-traumatic stress disorder because they can’t get past the trauma. The children live from Tzeva Adom (red alert siren) to Tzeva Adom.

I can understand their anger. However, what is the alternative? War? Sending Israeli troops into Gaza to make Hamas stop? Is that the solution? I hope not.

I sent a message to a woman in Israel, who is very dear to me, on Wednesday. She has a son and his family living in Ashkelon, and I wanted to let her know that I am thinking of them. She said that for her son and his family, it hadn’t been pleasant to run to the sealed room at night and not go to school. She said she was also very worried about her grandchildren in the army. The part that got to me most, though, was her last line, “Thank G-d we were not dragged into a war.” She is a mother, grandmother, and fourth-generation Israeli. No matter what people say, I do not believe anyone really wants war. They want to be safe and live without the constant threat of violence. They want their enemies to stop trying to destroy what they have in Israel.

When people say that Israel doesn’t want peace, and it is the aggressor, perhaps they should spend a day in Sderot, Ashkelon, Kfar Aza, and other places on the Gaza border. It might help to understand the desperate need for a solution to the Israel-Palestinian crisis. It is enough!

I only wish I had an answer to this catch-22 situation. I don’t, though. I will leave that to the brilliant strategists I would love to believe populate the Israeli government.

In this edition, however, we have tried to connect with as many people who have been drawn into the Gaza rocket fire this week, from ex-South Africans to a former Israeli Ambassador to SA. We wanted to bring their experiences home to us on the southern tip of Africa.

In one of these stories, it was quite telling that while we are concerned about our brethren in Israel, they are concerned about us in South Africa. This man said he feels safer in Ashkelon under fire than walking through the streets of Johannesburg. Go figure!